Vacation Pictures from Australia

Corran and I were in his homeland of Australia from mid-May to mid-July of 2000. We had our formal wedding in Sydney and then went on a honeymoon around the Blue Mountains, Jenolan, and Canberra. We took tons of pictures, but this selection is the best and/or most interesting of the bunch. Well, some of it won't be so interesting to people who live down under, but for a newbie tourist like me kangaroos, the Opera House, and other Australian icons were neat to see.

Yes, Corran and his family were very amused that I shot an entire roll of film on a couple of semi-wild kangaroos in Weston Park in Canberra. But if they were in Canada and saw beavers or bears, I'm sure they'd be snapping the pics. Of course, we were pretty close up to the kangaroos (not within kicking distance), and being that close to a semi-wild bear would probably be asking for severe pain, but that's another issue altogether. And for all the teasing about taking pictures of the Opera House, I'm sure most Aussie tourists in Toronto would be taking pictures of the CN Tower.

The bird pictures here are all from the zoo, because the pictures of the wild birds at the park in Canberra are all too distant to see well online. But it was very cool to see what I consider exotic birds, the kind that fetch very high prices at North American pet stores, just flying around wild.

Snow Leopard at Taronga Zoo, Sydney - looking right at me like I'm a nice big snack. Elsewhere in the zoo, we saw another big cat (can't recall what kind) that was looking down at unsuspecting children behind its cage, licking its lips, in a pre-pounce position.

Blue Lake at Jenolan - the water is blue from the limestone (calcium carbonate), and gives a false impression of depth. Looking into the water, it appears only hip-deep in places that are actually five or more feet deep.

More pictures of Jenolan, including the amazing formations in the caves, can be found at the site of The Jenolan Caves Reserve Trust. But be forewarned, the site is a bit nuts with the Flash animations, and there's a dripping noise in the gallery that I can't figure out how to turn off. Sure, I guess that's kind of accurate to the pictures since you hear dripping constantly in the caves, but it's more than a bit annoying on a website. The pictures are nice, though.

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